What Could Be--For Contemporary Policy and Practice: Challenges Posed by the Work of Edmond Holmes

A century ago Edmond Holmes, His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Elementary Schools from 1905 to 1910, made a major contribution to educational debate through his widely quoted and much disputed "What Is and What Might Be" (Holmes, 1911). In a previous article (Richards, 2010) his criticisms of what was then contemporary policy and practice were discussed, as was their pertinence to current policy and practice. In a previous issue of "FORUM" (Volume 52[3], 2010) Colin Richards attempted to apply Edmond Holmes's critique of 1911 to contemporary policy and practice. In this article he discusses the many positive challenges Holmes's work offers a hundred years on.